My Introduction - Why Blog, Why Now, Why ME?

My name is Mark Sweet, before I tell you where I am going I want to give you a snapshot of where I have come from. Some of my earliest memories from my childhood are memories of my fantastic imagination. I was an only child who thrived in my alone time, using it to conjure up stories of time travel, pirates and space adventures to rival the best. I was an avid book reader and had a healthy love for movies from an early age. I was 8 when I received my first gaming console, a Nintendo Entertainment System. I was instantly hooked, stories you could play out, where had this been!? I advanced through the gaming generations, from NES to SNES, PC games for a while then the Playstation 1 &2 but it was the Playstation 3 and the advent of trophies where, I can see now, the problems really started for me.

The Addiction

I can easily say that Playstation trophy hunting has (not sure I can say had as yet) become an outright addiction, the want and need to play a game to competition, or to play something I was totally uninterested in just for an easy swag of trophies, a digital reward, was taking over my life. I had lost sight of the reason I fell in love with gaming in the first place, the thrill of the story and the ability to control it myself, living through the game.  Anyone that is not familiar with the Playstation in-game trophy system, or the addiction that it can create, just needs to google the subject to see all the writing on it. While this addiction had limiting my range of creative intake, it had also helped me to create a small, and now I guess you could say unsuccessful, social media profile. I wrote many online guides for fellow trophy hunters, helping other achieve trophies in games and I also had a youtube channel dedicated to game playthroughs, trophy guides, game trailers and so on. I put a lot of work into both over 3-4 years, eventually losing the channel to an (what I believed to be) unwarranted copyright claim, youtube eventually closing my account. I was devastated, I felt my entire life’s work was gone. I was lost, what was I to do now? It was these feeling that started me thinking, I had to do something, I was losing myself and hating what had, for so long, kept me so entertained.

The Philosophy

During this long journey I lost the ability to create my own stories, that kid with the wild imagination was gone. Now, 32 years after my introduction to video games, I find I have given up reading, relying totally on gaming to provide me with creative release. I feel I need to say this, I have an addictive personality by nature. Whether it be alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gambling, video games, sugar, work, sport, exercise, mowing the lawn on Tuesdays! Whatever! Anything I get into can seems to take on addictive traits of some sort, I can’t help it. While it has created a lot of problems for me throughout my life, drugs and alcohol come to mind; it has also been advantageous at times, such as sport and exercise. So, I have decided to try and project my addictive personality onto something that, I believe, might give me great joy and possibly be something I can look back on as a renaissance of my creative mind. Armed with this newfound philosophy, I have made the following changes.

Gaming

I have decided that I will no longer be playing video game purely for digital achievements, I am playing for the love of the story, looking at games in a new light, or should I say an old light? Returning to the roots of why it captivated me originally. Focusing on narrative on the game. To help with this I have created this blog, where I will publish game reviews, with an emphasis on the story, not a traditional review taking into consideration gameplay mechanics, controls, save features, online play and the like, but narrative only and the creative flare of the writing. This I believe will help me rebuild my appreciation for storytelling.

Reading…. and watching

The last book I can remember reading, was…..well I can’t even remember the last book I read, it would possibly be a Goosebumps book, by R.L Stine, in early high school perhaps. I might have read a young teen vampire novel written by Christopher Pike at some stage, that sounds more like it as Goosebumps was probably more at an early schooling stage, but you get my point! I can’t even remember the last book I read! Sure, I attempted reading other books over the years. I would start, read a few pages or a whole chapter, then lose interest. I would get restless just sitting there reading, my mind would wander to what else I could be doing, namely playing a video game to earn those delicious trophies. It wasn’t my lack of ability to read, I just couldn’t find the commitment to do it, I had lost my ability to get lost in the story. This is going to change also as this blog will also showcase book reviews written by myself, I have already started compiling lists of authors and books I want to read. Stephen King, Richard Laymon, Michael Crichton and Dan brown are on my hitlist of ‘to reads’, a diverse range to get me started as I try to find my legs and what I enjoy. While I also want to cover movies, I don’t want it to spiral into a swamp of small reviews based on an experience that may only last 80 minutes or so, the length of a movie. I want to write deeper, more meaningful reviews and while this would be possible on a simple standalone movie, I want to try and stick to movies based on book, so I am able to make comparisons to the original book. I wouldn’t mind documenting my musings on entire franchises or series, such as Paranormal Activity or Saw, I feel it would be interesting to explore their history and timelines, but that’s a big ‘if’ at this point while I’m just starting out; it’s good to have future plans though.

Studying

Studying creative writing, this I believe will fuel the drive to explore my creative mind, helping me unlock that potential I know is in me but has been suppressed by the force feeding of mass media rubbish. Therefore, I have enrolled in Curtin University (Perth, Australia), studying online towards a BA in Creative Writing. A bit extreme? Maybe. Too much too soon? Possibly, but I want this to inspire me, to almost force me to use my mind for what I know it is capable of. I’m hoping the assignments I will be faced with will trigger something, get my creative juices flowing and my addictive personality will kick in and do the rest. At the time of writing this I am approaching the end of the first subject of my course; I am enjoying it and believe it has given my creativeness the shot of adrenalin it needed. As the course evolves, I will post various articles in relation to it here as well.

Writing

All this has brought me to this point, writing, sharing my inner thoughts. Well yes, sharing, but mostly just documenting, writing for writing sake, not caring if it gets read by anyone else or it just sit’s here as a testament to my attempt to change. As I have already explained, I intend to write review posts, my thought’s, on video games (their stories), books and movies. I am also writing my own stories, in fact, I have already commenced writing on my first creative piece. Whether it will be a short story or a novel I am unsure at this stage, although I am now leaning towards a short story for my first. It would be nice to be able to post here my progress or thoughts on writing, for feedback or just to record it somewhere. 

So, this is it, this is my blog. As I have said, I am not writing with the intent to amass a huge internet following, I do not expect riches and fame to come from this. A simple outlet for what I have inside is all I expect, and if somebody else reads it and likes what they see then that is a bonus. If you have made it this far, thank you. If you intend to come back and read my later writings, well I thank you some more. My name is Mark Sweet, I’m a recovering gaming addict, welcome to my Total Addiction to Fiction.

The Woods Are Dark - Richard Laymon

The Woods Are Dark - A Review of Richard Laymon's Novel

Richard Laymon was a name I came across while researching authors of horror novels. Having not been a great student of the genre, horror novels that is as horror movies I have been a fan of all my life, I must admit I had never heard of Laymon. After reading a few reviews I found a repeated theme; over the top violence and sexual content. Up until this point Stephen King was the only horror writer I had read, and I was looking for horror writers with an established reputation and a decent library of books, Laymon had both, and despite the comments I was reading in regard to his work the presence he appeared to have and his books were described with such distinct uniqueness, I felt compelled to read. I had never really read anything sexual, of any kind so I didn’t really know what to expect, and to be honest I actually disregarded any notion of effect reading sexual content might have on me. Splatterpunk was the subgenre his work is categorised as, and I thought this would be a good break from reading the slow burn style of King. I decided Laymon’s work was a must, I had to experience it for myself. Well, I found myself a collection of 15 use Laymon books online, so I’ve pretty much gone all-in on Laymon. I decided to start on this one as it is one of his earliest, and it was the shortest I had, a good place to start, I think.


Well the story didn’t take long to get into it, to set the scene and get to the meat and potatoes, so to speak. No time was wasted building the characters. You were given enough to know what you needed to know, Laymon almost uses clichés to establish characters, and this works. What is missing from a slow burn style, depth of character development and details of the setting for example, is more than made up with fast paced action. It is during this frenetic action where we get insights into the characters, from their reactions and as they are thrust into extraordinary situations, we see their character come out in the actions they take. It really is a great writing style and a real change for me from Stephen King, I loved it.


The story is set in the backwoods town of Barlow which holds a terrible secret deep in the woods. We follow the course of 3 groups of people who, inevitably, end up meeting and facing their fate in the woods together. The local townspeople of Barlow have a past time that is rather inhospitable towards visitors, and when Neala, Sherri and the Dills family find themselves in town for a short visit, well the visit becomes a little longer than they had anticipated. The townspeople’s attitude towards locals that object to what is going on is not much better, in fact, they are treated with the same contempt. John Robbins finds this out, as he finds himself catching romantic feelings for one of the town’s victims and, while attempting to save her, becomes a target for the very terror he first inflicted, then tried to save the girl from.  The way the 3 plot lines are structured and come together really is very good, there is a lot going on at times and each chapter does flick back and forth between the different characters scenes, but it all comes together nicely.

Richard Laymon

Ok, so I want to address the sexual content of the book. This being my first Laymon novel, and as I stated earlier I was aware of his reputation for the way he uses sexual content in his writing, maybe if I were to read more of his work the “shock and awe” effect would dull down to a normality and I wouldn’t have to mention it. But this is my first time reading Laymon, and some of the sexual “scenes” were a little uncomfortable, some just plain horrible. I say “scenes” as most of the sexual content involved assault and/or rape, and when I say horrible, I’m not meaning it was badly written, rather it was terrible thing. After reading one particularly horrific rape scene in which a 18 year old girl is gang raped by 3 boys, I stopped and thought to myself, why am I reading this, this is morally horrible. But, really, it’s probably the first thing that has truly made me feel horror in a long time, definitely the first to make me feel as gutted and desolate towards humanity as this did. So perhaps it served purpose, it managed to horrify me, which is the goal of a horror novel. It did not glorify the assault, and the way the victim dealt with it added to the character development and to the story as a whole. This can be said of all the scenes of a sexual nature, for this was not the only assault.


What was a little strange, I found, was the inclusion of sexuality at inapt moments throughout the book, it really took me by surprise the first time. The first time being just 4 pages in mind you, as one of the female characters take a simple stretch and we are treated to an insight to her inner fantasies of having a man’s hands on her breasts and nipples. It really is a, “wait, what!?” moment. But they can be pass off as simple quirks in the writing, I guess. Similarly, the over the top reactions of some of the characters, and how quickly they can turn into psychotic killers themselves could be seen as over the top, but then again how would somebody react in the situation I suppose. In the end the graphic sexual content, or violence as it is really, isn’t overly done, just the right amount, if there is such a thing. There is plenty that goes on, or is alluded too, throughout the story (the bizarre unexpected ending among plenty of others) that is not fully explained. The who, what or how of a lot of things is left a mystery, not sure if this is deliberate, but it does create an atmosphere of uncertainty and craziness. It let’s you get lost in the unbelievability of the story, and you really don’t notice it unless you start to knit pick.


For my first Richard Laymon read I have to say I’m not blow out of the park, but I’m not disappointed either. It was a short interesting story, well written, with enough uniqueness to make me want more. I have read that this is known as one of Laymon’s, if not the, worst book he had written. If this is the case, then I have a lot to look forward to.

Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry – 
A Return to Old School Larry?


OK, bear with me while I sent the scene here. The early 90’s, I was pre-teen boy deeply engrossed in my NES console games. I had all the classics, Mario Bros, Gradius, Wizards & Warriors and Castlevania. I had my subscription to Nintendo Magazine System and watched Captain N: The Game Master religiously. I considered myself a gamer, already at such a young age I knew this medium had a hold on me, and I loved and embraced it. I remember the Saturday that changed gaming for me very well. I went to a friend’s house, not a close friend, but what I would call a fringe friend. All my inner circle friends played Nintendo, we swapped games and shared stories, if I was at one of one these friends house’s, what was about to happened would never had happened. You see, this friend did not play Nintendo. He was, what is called these days, a PC gamer. Back then we just called it “Playing games on the computer”, but he and what he was about to show me changed my life. He fired up his 386 computer (could have even been a 286) and started playing Leisure Suit Larry in The Land of The Lounge Lizards. “What was this” I remember thinking. Nonlinear gameplay, you can type anything, look and interact with everything (so it seemed anyway) and the feeling of complete freedom. I was captivated by the feeling of pure adventure and mystery, it had me. So, began what I refer to as my PC era where I almost exclusively played PC adventure games, Leisure Suit Larry games were a big part of that.


So, scene set, thanks for hanging in there but I wanted to go part of the way in expressing how big a deal this series is to me. The sheer fact that it keeps rolling out new editions is testament to the longevity, amazing in this day and age really considering the content. Leisure Suit Larry is one, in a collection of games, from Sierra that epitomises PC adventure gaming during the 80’s and 90’s. Other titles such as Police Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory and the grand-daddy of them all King’s Quest are front of mind, each with similar gameplay mechanics but completely different stories and atmosphere. In Larry you played a sleazy man named Larry Laffer, your main goal was to help worm his way into the affections of women so they would have sex with him. Along the way solving puzzles, mysteries and generally getting into and out of strange and awkward situations. It sounds like a bizarre and not-so-great story premise, but the humour written into the game makes it great fun, it just works. My greatest memory of the first Larry game was, after having unprotected sex with a prostitute in game, Larry up and unexpectedly, without warning just died later in the game. A pop-up text box informs the player that Larry died as a result of his choice to not use protection, he died of a disease.  The Larry games went on to produced 6 PC games between 1987 and 1996, a brief hiatus before an appearance during the PS3/XBOX era (also on PC), then again in 2009 on PC/PS3/360. Wet Dreams Don’t Dry is the first Larry game in 10 years, and after the last 2 attempts have had less than warm receptions due to what could be called a deviation from the winning formula, this latest rendition get’s back to what Larry does best. Adventure gaming with crude humour and shocking over the top vulgarity.


The story of this game sees Larry Laffer waking up after a long hibernation, as the protagonist in the last 2 games in the series was actually Larry Lovage (Laffer’s Nephew), the narrative of the game is written as this being the first time Larry Laffer has been loose in the public since 80’s (even though the last game to actually feature Laffer was 1996). Needless to say, the world has changed a lot in this time and Larry has a bit of catching up to do, especially in the areas of sex and dating culture. The first, of many, learning curves for Larry comes as he is introduced to the digital age of mobile phones and the internet and, as the player, this is also where we start to notice the blatant parody of well know brands. Piphone (iPhone), Timber (Tinder) and Prune (apple) to name just a few of the most obvious, but the game is loaded with clever play-on-words such as these. To add to this, scattered throughout the landscape of New Lost Wages (the city the story is set in and another example of witty wording) we will find an incredible amount of hidden surprises and easter eggs, some of which you can interact with, some you cannot and some you can actually play. This is a nice touch, it possible that a lot of them will be missed or not noticed by a lot of people, but when you see something you know is planted there for you to see or find, it makes you feel valued as a viewer. As the story unfolds we watch as Larry struggles to come to terms with the 21^st century, raising questions and pointing out the flaws with what we take as everyday life This is a big part of the charm early on in the game and it works in pulling you in and getting invested in Larry and the story early on. As Larry finds his feet and comes to terms with the new world around him the basic shell of the story, the purpose, forms around you. Larry has his eye on a woman and is given a, although we don’t know it yet, near impossible set of tasks before she will even consider interest in him. And so, we are off, unleashing Larry armed with his Timber app on the unsuspecting ladies of New Lost Wages.


Although the overall story isn’t exactly a deep one, it isn’t going to be talked about throughout the ages, the nostalgia value for veterans of the series throughout the journey more than makes up for this. On the flip side, if you are new to the series, if this is the first time you encounter a Larry story, the same values that make it such a nostalgic for experienced Larry fans will come as a fresh change; making the game stand out as a unique one-of-a-kind. The crude humour, the subject matter, the images, the situations; you’re not going to find this anywhere else but a Larry game. The interaction between your in game mobile phone, your apps and game map are seamless and add almost a sense of immersion, that “oh wow, that’s cool” feeling. One thing I would have to say however, once the initial honeymoon period is over and the humour style and story have sunk in, somewhere in the middle of the story I did start to get a little bored, only a little though. The nature of the game style, a point and click adventure, has you revisiting the same locations to use or pick up something that wasn’t there or wasn’t available earlier on in the story. It is this repeated revisiting that can get a bit tedious, but in its defence, this story managed to pace itself quite well, so the monotony was kept to a minimum. As far as the climax to the story, I found it a little flat, in fact the last few sequences to the story were a bit disappointing to be honest. Late in the game the setting shifts, and from then on, it’s almost feels like it’s a different story, something changes, it loses a bit of the magic that kept me ploughing through in one sitting up to that point. There was a twist and an opening ending, leaving us with the possibility of another Larry game in the future.


Overall, I am happy with this instalment, actually, I am very happy. It’s always a worry, a cause for anxiety, when a favourite franchise (especially a childhood one) is given a new coat of paint, a “modernisation”. But I think it is safe to say that this, for new and old players alike, is a joy to experience. Whether it be a trip down memory lane or a new experience it will be an eye opener. While the story alone might not shake the foundations, it is enough to keep you ticking over until Larry shocks you with his next one liner, or you come across that dildo or condom you needed to solve the next puzzle.  

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Part 1 and Part 2 – The Screenplay Script

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: 
Part 1 and Part 2 – The Screenplay Script

I need to get something off my chest, there’s something you really need to know, full disclosure. The Cursed Child is the first harry potter book I have ever read. Now that fact may shock some people, I may lose a little respect and my opinion might not be considered worthy, by some. But I am going to attempt to give it anyway, think of it what you will. One way to look at it is this, the fact that this is my first HP reading, the fact I have not read anything from J.K. Rowling means I am both unconnected to her writing and to the written world of HP, so my review could be seen as unbiased. I know that this isn’t written by J.K. Rowling, so some say I wouldn’t be able to compare to the original HP series anyway; but as this is a screenplay script, well, I think we can say that writing style is out of the equation. Why haven’t I ever read a HP book? Why is this my first? Well, the books were all released during my “reading hiatus”, the period of my life (pretty much from end of school to now, about 20 years) where I just didn’t read a thing, so I guess I just missed them. I’m changing this now as my literary renaissance has begun, but for now this is the first I have read as I am off to see the stage show in Melbourne in a few months’ time and thought it would be good to know a little of the story first. So that’s me and my HP ignorance out of the way, let me give you my thoughts on this book.

On the back of saying I have never read a HP book up until now, I’m going to say this, I am still a massive HP fan! As far as the none reading HP fan can be, I guess. Loved all the movies, loved the story and the characters, loved the setting, loved the adventure, loved Hogwarts, loved the entire wizarding world… just loved it. So, as most fans would have done, I was excited when I read that this story was coming. What would it be? Where would the story go? I spent many a moment letting my mind wander, exploring the possibilities of what could be. Knowing of the conclusion to the Deathly Hallows, with the final scenes of Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny seeing their children off to Hogwarts, I rightly expected The Cursed Child to involve these same children in a possible “next generation” situation. I wondered how they would compare to the original gang and would they be able to carry on the tradition, would the legacy be tarnished by this attempt to continue the story? Well, as it turns out, I didn’t really have to worry about any of those things, and this is both a relief and a disappointment.

Yes, the children of the original HP gang are involved, and you could say that 2 of them actually play central rolls seeing they are the cause of the trouble the story is premised on. But at no point did I actually feel like they were about to break out and turn the story on it head, pull their wands out and lead us into a spell casting magic fight the likes of which will sweep us up onto a broom and into the next generation of young wizarding adventures. In fact, at times it seemed like they were playing at being “Timmy down a well” and their misadventures were just a plant, an excuse for the “old gang to get back together one last time”. This did not feel like a new story, it did not feel like a steppingstone between the old guard and the new, it felt like a HP version of a reunion special. The new characters, the children of the “old gang” are quite simply useless. The relationship between Harry and his son is developed a lot, and I think an attempt has been made to, for want of a better word, blood the new characters into the series, but in the end without the originals being wheeled out it would have fallen flat. So, I’m saying the new characters are weak, but the old characters carry it through the story, or do they? As the story isn’t the best either.

Without spoilers or divulging too much of the plot, there is a time turner involved, allowing time travel. This is both the saving grace of the story as well as one of its faults. Time travel allows the characters to return to previously used scenes and situations in the HP timeline, one of the more interesting aspects as this creates some Back to The Future type moments of trying to avoid interaction with themselves. What this also creates is the terrible feeling that you are being served up a rerun special, the type sitcom writers would produce every now and again, where you end up watching (or in this case reading and experiencing) previous episodes through flashbacks. The story flowed through these points and it worked well, but you couldn’t help but feel it was a little cheap, a little unimaginative. What this lack of imagination did, however, was let you build the atmosphere from memories of the previous stories as you, the reader, had been there before. By the time I got through these scenes, my appreciation of the story had grown, but then I realised the book hadn’t done anything but relive an old story and I had created the feelings and the atmosphere myself. This was good, although I think it was a happy coincidence.

It must be said that by two thirds of the way through I managed to see past these flaws, and the final twist the story gives is acceptable. While I’m not totally blown away as it does have some serious let downs, it does have some interesting points. I said earlier that this was my first, that I had not read a HP book before. Well I still feel like I haven’t read a HP book, this is more like a spin off or, as I said before, a reunion episode. I look forward now to reading some real Harry Potter.

Detroit: Become Human - Review of the story

This game was on my ‘to play’ list from the time it was released. I didn’t really know much about it, I knew it wasn’t an action packed game and it didn’t exactly seem to have a suspenseful or dark horror vibe, something I might normally look for in a game, but it did come across as a sci-fi mystery of some sort, and that appealed to me. The fact the game seemed to hold its price for nearly 12 months after release, meant I was late to the party in playing it. I just don’t like paying full price unless I know what I am getting or it is one of my favourite franchises, then I might pay full price no matter what. I can now safely say that I am kicking myself that I waited so long to play this, it is one of the best story driven games I have ever played.

The story is set in Detroit, the year is 2038 and humanoid android robots are as common as mobile phones, used for conducting all manner of tasks from cleaning and security to sports and military defence. Androids have also found their way into people’s homes, filling more intimate rolls of maids, nannies and personal assistants, and this is where our journey begins. Two of our main characters, the story path of which we will be following throughout the game, are working in such roles. Kara, a housekeeper android owned by an abusive man who also has a young daughter, and Markus who is a personal assistant for an elderly, wealthy, wheelchair bound artist. As these character’s stories begin, they quickly take, what may seem at first, a turn for the worst as their existence is thrown into turmoil; However, is it what they are going to become, not what they were built for that makes this tale. You see, there is a potential fault with androids, an error in their programming where they decide to think for themselves, disobeying their programmed orders and seeing themselves as their own person, making their own decisions and even believing they are alive. This error is referred to as Divergent, the term given to androids that have broken free of their programming and are running rouge. We are told that divergency can be triggered in androids by a traumatic event and this is exactly what happens to Kara and Marcus. Kara witnesses the young girl being abused and becomes divergent to take the girl and escape the house to safety and Marcus is put in a difficult situation as he gets involved in a family argument between his owner and his son, ultimately becoming divergent to defend himself. Now enters our third character, Connor, a police detective android specially programmed to hunt divergents, returning them to the manufacturer to be dismantled and studied to learn the cause of the divergency. The scene is set as a three-way plot begins on an ultimate collision course, with a lot of twists and dead ends along the way.

From left to right: Connor, Marcus and Kara

The morals and meanings wrapped in the narrative of this game are widespread and diverse, touching on many aspects of modern human life. It felt like there wasn’t a scene, a scenario or at some point even a conversation that wasn’t laced with moral questions that challenged who you were as a person. I found that I quickly became attached to Kara, I felt sympathetic to situation, she just wanted to get herself and the girl, Alice, to safety. She has a vision of escaping to Canada, where android laws would allow her to live free. Along the way she encounters threats, warm hearted people willing to help her as well as some cold realities that will give you that “no way!” reaction. The whole time she want’s nothing to do with the inevitable revolution that is unfolding around her, a revolution that is fuelled by one of our other characters, Marcus. While the touching mother daughter struggle for freedom story is unfolding with Kara, Marcus is fighting for the freedom of all androids, on the way raising questions and touching on subjects such as human rights, oppression and false media reporting (or ‘fake news’) all while being challenged with his own moral dilemmas, the biggest being whether to be aggressive or peaceful when pushing for android freedom. The story played out with both of these characters can easily be brushed over, played out without really thinking too deep into it, but if you really contemplate some of the situations you find yourself in you will quickly see that the game deals with some pretty heavy stuff. Now while all this is playing out our third character, Connor, is investigating the divergents, hot on their tail trying close the case on them as he is programmed to do. This is not a simple open and shut case however, as his investigations go on you are confronted with questions that tear at the fabric of who he is as a android….or a person? You will have many opportunities while following his story to make decisions, decisions that could turn Connor into a cold, programmed robot or a divergent sympathiser, in fact, even an outright divergent. The story of Connor is made all the better by Lieutenant Hank Anderson, the police detective Connor is attached to as his partner on the investigation for the divergents in Detroit. Hank adds a very real human element to the game, while you never actually get the chance to take control and play as him, he plays as much an important part in the story as the 3 playable characters. Is own personal journey throughout the game is heavily affected by your choices as the androids, and it’s interesting to see how his interactions can change.

Lieutenant Hank Anderson

I just want to touch on some of the gamification of the story, and how it adds to the overall effect. While I’m not overly interested in controls, checkpoint placement or loading screens it must be said that the graphics in this game are fantastic, some of the best I have seen on consoles. This adds to the story by making it oh-so-easy to relate and connect emotionally to the characters as it can sometimes feel you are watching a real person. The fact that you are watching a video game that looks very realistic is just compounded when you think, you are watching a very realistic video game human, that is actually an android that thinks it’s alive… it just works. Hand-in-hand with the graphics is the voice acting, it is outstanding and at no time does it feel like the lines are just being read, the characters emotions can be felt in the voices and this makes it feel all the more real. Quick time events (QTE) are sometimes seen as the bane of a gamers existence and they can draw a lot of hate as they are seen as lazy game development, however I am happy to say that the QTE’s found in Detroit are pleasurable and actually add to the story. While deeply engrossed in watching a fight take place the player’s QTE actually makes flows smoothly with what’s going on and as your thumb flashes to press the right button it connects to the impact of the next in-game movement, so much that at some points it feels like you are controlling John Wick during one of his intense combat scenes. Now it must be said, this game is a ‘choose you own adventure’ type, meaning the story can change and be vastly different depending on the decisions you make in certain situations. So, it is quite possible that 2 people are going to have very different story experiences, at least on their first time through. I played through the game twice, the second time making polar opposite decisions compared to my first run just to see what would happen. Needless to say, I had a very different game with a completely different ending. Lastly the game’s main menu, not very often would you come across a situation where the simple menu could add to the story, But I feel Detroit finds a way. Chloe is an android; she is also the main menu hostess who will comment on you progress and “talk” to you whenever you find yourself on the menu screen. As your game progresses her comments and facial features change as she starts to question who she is and why she is there, in line with the timeline of the game’s story. It get’s to the point where she asks you if you will let her leave, and you get to choose if she can go or not. I found that an amazing touch, but I was further blown away by the moral intense questionnaire she invites you too, later showing the global results so you can compare your answers to everybody else worldwide. Some classy touches that just add to the ambience of the game.

Hostess Chloe

To conclude, Detroit is a must if you are looking for a good, narrative driven game. It is one of those stories you don’t want to end, you will want to see what happens after the credits roll and will be praying for a sequel, one that continues right where the first left off without changing a thing. Detroit will make you really think, it will give you characters you invest emotionally in, then force you to make decisions for them and show you the consequences. No matter what you decide or how you shape your story, there is enough here to keep both hardcore gamer and pure narrative lover occupied. A must have for any collection.